Telco Systems will provide Internet Solutions Kenya with a fully automated software-defined network (SDN) with the capacity to support 10 gigabit Ethernet services to its enterprise customers.

Internet Solutions Kenya is part of a larger group of companies that have operations in South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, and elsewhere in Africa. Internet Solutions Kenya has a fiber-based MPLS network now in place, providing cloud, communication, connectivity, and carrier services within Kenya and connecting outside Kenya.

Metro Ethernet pioneer Telco Systems has a multinational clientele that includes Verizon, Time Warner Cable, Bell, Telefonica, Nokia, Orange, and Ziggo, to name a few. It also already has a customer in Africa, and it happens to be in Kenya – the Kenya Education Network (Kenet).

Telco Systems prides itself on several capabilities, but among them is its ability to push MPLS-based systems to the edge and its expertise with NFV. Those will both be relevant when working with Internet Solutions Kenya.

Telco Systems will be replacing an unidentified incumbent communications supplier as it helps Internet Solutions Kenya with the upgrade to provide more bandwidth. The equipment vendor said it will provide a fully automated software-defined network with the capacity to support 10GE, using its 10G Ethernet MPLS Demarcation & Pre-Aggregation Platform and two demarcation devices.

Internet Solutions Kenya will also use Telco Systems’ EdgeGenie Orchestrator service management system. EdgeGenie is modular; different modules make use of various open source technologies, such as OpenDaylight and OpenStack, as needed to deploy and manage services.

The Kenyan operator will end up with full MPLS services across all parts of its fiber network all the way to the customer. In addition, this network upgrade will include the latest MEF 2.0 standards, which will allow Internet Solutions Kenya to deliver more robust services to its customers.

This deal may lead to a deeper relationship. “This is not the end in our engagement with them,” Telco Systems Chief Executive Ariel Efrati told SDxCentral. “We’re discussing with them a more sophisticated platform for virtualization. They will be one of the first in Africa to offer virtualized services.”

Efrati said not only does he expect the work with Internet Solutions Kenya to lead to additional business with other companies in its group, but he also thinks that business will be a springboard for business with unrelated companies on the continent.

Many African countries have already installed fiber, now they’re looking to make money from those investments, Efrati noted. “It’s a good opportunity. They can take a quantum leap. They have less legacy infrastructure to hold them down,” he said, later adding, “Everyone thinks about innovation coming from America, Europe, and so on. I think Africa has a lot to offer.”